Nearly halfway through a four-hour meeting Tuesday night, Kathy Carolan Watanabe was asked to give her final pitch to the Santa Clara City Council about why she should be selected to fill a vacancy on the seven-member body.

Noting that the north side of the city needed representation and that she worked hard, Watanabe hefted a wad of papers and said, “I have the agenda and the packet for tomorrow night”s meeting. And I”m ready to go to work.”

A couple of hours later, on a 4-2 vote, the council selected Watanabe over Raj Chahal to serve the eight months remaining on the term of Lisa Gillmor, who had been elevated to mayor.

Solid choice

Watanabe, a legal assistant for a Palo Alto law firm, has a long record of involvement in civic affairs, including working for libraries and serving as president of Santa Clara”s Sister Cities organization. You cannot read her Facebook page without being impressed with her intelligence and energy.

Politically, too, the choice makes sense: The north side of the city, long underrepresented, will have a council member now. And the council now has a 4-3 female majority.

Yet one piece of this leaves me, and not just me, with a sense of a mission uncompleted. Despite her last name, Watanabe is white. (She is married to Karl Watanabe, a West Valley-Mission Community College trustee.)

Ordinarily, her race would not matter. It doesn”t define what kind of council member she”ll be. Because of her family, Watanabe arguably has a better understanding of Asian-Americans.

The math, however, remains the same. Despite several very well-qualified minority candidates Tuesday night, the Santa Clara City Council remains all white — and this in a community that has become astonishingly diverse.

The council has drawn criticism for years on this point. Typically, the voters chose their representatives. But in this case, it was the council itself that made the call.

(Watanabe had backing from Gillmor and council members Debi Davis, Teresa O”Neill and Pat Kolstad. Chahal was supported by Jerry Marsalli and Dominic Caserta.)

Best interview

For all her stamina and willingness to go to work immediately, Watanabe was not even the most impressive candidate of the 16 that the council interviewed Tuesday night.

That distinction went to Sudhanshu Jain, a planning commissioner who thought about each question and answered with candor, humor and a detailed knowledge of the city.

Take his answer to O”Neill”s question about what he would like see in a replacement for City Manager Julio Fuentes, who has announced that he will leave the city May 31.

Jain said he wanted to see “a city manager who is more invested in the community. Someone who is really concerned about the quality of life for residents, perhaps less concerned about economic development.” It was a tough but absolutely fair critique of Fuentes” reign.

In the first round of voting, Jain got votes from every council member except Mayor Gillmor, who clearly was backing Watanabe.

A candidate as impressive as Jain — or Raj Chahal, who pitched himself as a team player — deserves a place on this council, and soon.

The challenge for Santa Clara”s existing power structure is to recognize that need and act upon it. In 2010, the city”s population was 38 percent Asian and nearly 20 percent Hispanic. The composition of the people on the dais should reflect that diversity a little more accurately.